Fagus Factory
* This name is listed on the World Heritage List. ª The region is classified by UNESCO.
The Fagus Factory is a factory in the southern Lower Saxony town of Alfeld on a leash and domicile of the company Fagus -GreCon. The plant was designed in 1911 by the architect Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer and his staff is one of the first examples of modern architecture since 1946 under monument protection. Since June 2011, part of the whole factory complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
History
The entrepreneur Carl Benscheidt (1858-1947) granted Walter Gropius in 1911 the contract to build for his new shoe last factory, a factory building, which meet modern point of view and should be right on the railway line Hannover-Alfeld-Kassel/Bebra. Here, Gropius was able to draw on the floor plan on an already completed preliminary design of the architect Eduard Werner, to entirely new territory in the facade design. Furthermore, it was Gropius and process with its employees Meyer experiences gained in the 19th century in the greenhouse, station and Weltausstellungsbau. Also has the factory Alfelder an immediate, but long time unrecognized predecessor in by an anonymous author designed Steiff factory in Giengen (1903 ). Today is located in the buildings of the Fagus -Werke except the shoe last manufacturing a shoe museum. The name is Latin and means Fagus beech. Buchholz was the raw material for the resident in Alfeld since 1858 industrial shoe last production.
The facility has a registered historical monument since 1946 and was extensively restored in 1984. Since 2006, located in the former warehouse a Fagus -Gropius exhibition. On 25 June 2011, the factory complex was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Details Architecture
It has already characteristic elements were used, which were later to determine the international style. Particularly noteworthy are curtain walls of glass, clear cubic shape and the design of the steel beams. The cross-shaped pillars are changing toward the top and become slimmer, the middle is the glass apron. The glazing is contained in a steel frame, originally Gropius had planned the facade in front of the pillars. On ceiling height to steel panels are held the glass panes, this apron is running on the corner to around the staircase around. So far, the corners of the building were always very massive and should leave a solid impression. The revolutionary aspect of this building is the "open" area, which was the beginning of modern skeleton construction. The corners of the building are not easy hervorkragende concrete structures, but were reinforced by a cross design. The building is very narrow and should leave no monumental impression of lightness and transparency are in deliberate contrast to the closed stone - brick building. Gropius also took care not only about the outer design but worked out many details and the interior design.
Karl Benscheidt (1888-1975), son of company founder Carl Benscheidt commissioned in 1928 today world -renowned photographer Albert Renger- Patzsch ( 1897-1966 ) to photograph the Fagus Factory. Karl Benscheidt gave him complete freedom in the choice of subject. It produced some of the most famous photographs of Albert Renger- Patzsch. Three photographs in this series took over Carl Georg Heise, author and publisher of " The World is Beautiful " (1928 ), in this work - including the " iron shoe ", an incunabula of the New Objectivity photography. In April 1928 caused 50 to 60, with a new order in 1952, another 28 shots. The negatives of the original contract were lost in World War II, the second, and a series of photographs are kept in Albert Renger- Patzsch archive. A larger number of prints is located at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin.